Summary

Booklist Review

Dorothy Martin, a sixtyish American widow newly married to her retired chief constable husband Alan Nesbitt, escapes with him for a holiday in Cornwall. She hopes to exorcise the memory of an unsolved murder that still bothers Alan: a young woman with long blonde hair found in a cove in Penzance in 1968. Arriving in lovely and sunny Cornwall, Dorothy and Alan meet a model named Lexa and her mother, who is clearly very ill. When Lexa's body is found in the same Penzance cove a few nights later, connections between the murders seem remote--or are they? Dorothy is salty and strong-minded, but she always remembers her hats and her sunscreen; her British spouse is genial and gentle but always an ex-copper. Drug dealing, the antiques trade, and Cornwall itself, its beauty and its history of smuggling, all play roles in this lively cozy. --GraceAnne A. DeCandido

Publisher's Weekly Review

Cornwall has a tradition as a setting for good mysteries, and this latest from Dams is no exception. In the seventh Dorothy Martin mystery (after 2000's Killing Cassidy), the retired Indiana school teacher and her husband, Chief Constable Alan Nesbitt (Ret.), escape from their rainy home in Sherebury to sunny Penzance, where Dorothy avowedly, and Alan less openly, hope to find evidence to solve a mystery that has long haunted Alan the mysterious death of an unknown girl. Their Penzance vacation starts auspiciously enough with a chance meeting with a cancer patient and her beautiful daughter, as well as a party invitation from one of the town's leading citizens. Within a few days, however, history seems to be repeating itself when the daughter is found dead, apparently of a drug overdose. The opportunity to investigate is all too tempting, especially when the police shelve the inquiry to pursue other matters, including a bank robbery and the missing granddaughter of the couple's party host. Dorothy, who likes to gossip over tea or brandy, and Alan, who is methodical and thorough, make an appealing sleuthing pair. The tightly constructed plot contains enough twists to keep the reader wondering, though the somewhat weak solution rests on Dorothy's suppositions rather than on the concrete evidence her husband or the police might have provided. Well-drawn characters and striking sense of place make this a welcome addition to the series. (Nov. 23) FYI: Dams is also the author of Green Grow the Victims (Forecasts, Apr. 16) and other mysteries in the Hilda Johansson series. (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Library Journal Review

Rainy-day boredom leads series sleuth Dorothy Martin an American retired to England to vacation in Cornwall with her British husband, a retired policeman. Once there, she zeroes in on the unsolved 1968 murder of an unidentified young woman. Firmly and successfully in the cozy tradition. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.